My Comic Book History Pt. 3

Cut to 1996. The local comic book store has closed, and I haven't thought about comics in a solid year, aside from some idle chatter with my friend Nathan. I was standing in line at the supermarket, and I happened to get in the line where comic books were on display, rather than candy (deja vu to Pt. 1!). What I saw was Uncanny X-Men #330, which showed Wolverine and Archangel on the cover in samurai garb. On a whim, I bought it. Immediately, I was blown away by, of all things, the paper quality. I had become accustomed to fading colors on bad newsprint, and the vividness of these pages jumped out immediately. I had never seen such vibrant colors in comics. Also, the art of Joe Madureira was such a change. His Japanese-inspired pencils, while commonplace now, were new and exciting, especially for someone who hadn't bought a comic in a couple years. The story, although it involved some back-tracking, was easy to follow, the writing was taut and witty, and the art was incredible. Like a drunk taking a Jager Bomb, I was hooked.

Having Nate around helped immensely. My tastes ran towards X-Men and the like, and I purchased all of that Onslaught monstrosity, as well as almost every book Marvel published. But Nate introduced me to things like David Lapham's Stray Bullets (gritty crime drama), and the Valiant line like Magnus, Robot Fighter (old-school superhero action done right).

I mostly stuck to Marvel, but as I said, I did begin to branch out a bit. This was also the first time when I began paying attention to the creators behind the books. I would read anything by Mark Waid after his "Man Without a County" arc in Captain America. This lead to me reading his work on "The Flash" and "Impulse". Also, I fell in love with Joe Madureira's pencils, as they were unlike anything I had ever seen in superhero comics. I also rediscovered the coolness of Batman, becoming amazed that there were still stories to be told about a character who had been around for so long.

The dark side of this is the excessive amount of crap I purchased. There's a lot, though we'll save it for a slow week.

This period didn't go out with a bang so much as a whimper. As I said, I devotedly followed the Onslaught X-over, and I was excited for the "Heroes Reborn" event which came afterwards (mostly because Wizard told me I was excited) but I just stopped buying comics again somewhere along the line. I stopped going to the comic book store every week, reverting to picking up a few books at the supermarket, the cutting it to Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four, then just Uncanny (the Segal run), and then none altogether.

I didn't stop reading however. I bought trades and graphic novels at the bookstore, including old material like Watchmen and The Dark Night Returns, as well as newer stuff like Ultimate Spider Man, Kingdom Come, and the Earth X trilogy. Of particular interest to me were the Marvel "Essential" books (sometimes derisively referred to as "coloring books") because they were a way for me to fill in the gaps of my knowledge of past characters.

This all geared up for an end to the hiatus...